My son and I have been reading the reprints of the old X-men. We started at the beginning with Kirby and are just into the John Byrne/Clarmont stuff. Lots of fun. Here’s my pencil sketch of the team (minus Banshee) post Sentinel attack.
January 20, 2013
Rock Paper Scissors Expansion
Here it is. The official expansion set to the original Rock Paper Scissors as created by my 10 year old son and I on a long long train trip.
A wonderful Wiki story about a famous Rock Paper Scissors match…
When Takashi Hashiyama, CEO of a Japanese television equipment manufacturer, decided to auction off the collection of impressionist paintings owned by his corporation, including works by Cézanne, Picasso, and van Gogh, he contacted two leading auction houses, Christie’sInternational and Sotheby’s Holdings, seeking their proposals on how they would bring the collection to the market as well as how they would maximize the profits from the sale. Both firms made elaborate proposals, but neither was persuasive enough to get Hashiyama’s business. Unwilling to split up the collection into separate auctions, Hashiyama asked the firms to decide between themselves who would hold the auction, which included Cézanne’sLarge Trees Under the Jas de Bouffan, worth $12–16 million.
The houses were unable to reach a decision. Hashiyama told the two firms to play rock-paper-scissors to decide who would get the rights to the auction, explaining that “it probably looks strange to others, but I believe this is the best way to decide between two things which are equally good”.
The auction houses had a weekend to come up with a choice of move. Christie’s went to the 11-year-old twin daughters of the international director of Christie’s Impressionist and Modern Art Department Nicholas Maclean, who suggested “scissors” because “Everybody expects you to choose ‘rock’.” Sotheby’s said that they treated it as a game of chance and had no particular strategy for the game, but went with “paper”.
Christie’s won the match and sold the $20 million collection, with millions of dollars of commission for the auction house.
December 20, 2012
Handmade Vector Loaf
Handmade vector loaf. A three word poem as my old friend Raymond Luk would say. This is my first attempt at a vector-based logo design for my friend, Dave McRae. Dave is an extremely talented chef and baker. His business is growing with every new convert to his beautiful ‘Red Fife’ loaf. His design specifications were very well thought out. It was a pleasure to collaborate on his brand identity. If you’re interested in a bread subscription from Dave go to: The Grain Revolution.
September 13, 2012
Hank Williams III. He’s a full on cow-punk who seems to be trying desperately to tear down the Hank Williams mythology.
I feel for the guy.
September 11, 2012
Wailing Wall
Last weekend I was lucky enough to get an invite to a crazy, live, Nuit Blanche drawing night. Ryan Cassidy brought together a wack of talent in his new studio to create a 4′ x 16′ black and white smorgasbord jam. This all-night event was in tandem with the renown Guelph Jazz Festival. Of course, being illustrators, therefore, being used to all-nighters, we were able to densely fill the masonite board well before 2 am. Guelph musician, Taylor Moran was there to provide the apt soundtrack to the apocalyptic drawing fever. 
I was so delighted to meet up with my old friend, Marc Bell who was also drawing. I haven’t seen Marc for 21 years! My other talented collaborators included, genius Gillian Wilson, hotshot Michael Byers, renaissance man Greg Pepper, gentleman Rob Tustall, master of tone Scott Mooney and my old friend and pop master, Jay Stephens. Marc and I looked at each other at the finish and thought, ‘That’s a great warm up. Let’s take down the piece and go again”. Lots and lots of fun! Thanks Ryan. 
August 30, 2012
Kingsbury Music
Here’s one for my talented friend and neighbour, Shannon Kingsbury. Shannon is now offering singing lessons and classes out of her studio and has just launched her website. Her cool record is called, Luminocity.
Congrats!
July 29, 2012
Crazy for Manga!
Here’s the cover to a new comic/Manga Strathmore sketch pad from my good friends at Staedtler. They’re going into a second run of the pad and adding my newly illustrated ‘How-To-Draw-Manga’ single page on the inside of the cover. It’ll be released in the fall so I’ll hold off on posting the interior page until then. What do I know about Manga? Big props to Paul Gravett for his essential Manga primer, “Manga: Sixty Years of Japanese Comics”. A fantastic inspiration as always.
July 25, 2012
Fairytail Death-ey
Over the past 7 months I’ve been papering illustration prospects with a series of postcards. Each of the cards came with the heading, “The Art Directors’ Lexicon of Adjectives”.
The subhead for this image was:
‘Fairytale Death-ey’.
June 5, 2012
High Brow Hegemony
This piece is for Anna Del Col and Beate Schwirtlich at University of Toronto Press (Higher Learning division). The central idea of the author’s text: The true meaning of democracy is something that we each possess as individuals yet can only be demonstrated through group cultural experiences (it’s a clumsy paraphrase).
Below is the original rough concept. Though high in cool factor the final concept is much more current event but demonstrates the same basic content — better yet you can’t see what the audience/crowd is responding to.
May 15, 2012
Top 10 Unused Commissions (#10)
Here’s one for my cranial sacral, Jungian healer friend. She’s disappeared into a masters of social work and hasn’t been back since…
Holy ven imagery batman!
